reinstall with reserve partition

I think I am opening a can of worms but I want to be sure of something. I have read the tutorials etc. but find them confusing so perhaps someone could kindly pabulum feed the directions.

When you get to 0 unallocated 900 GB do you click next and apply in order to have reserve partition when the OS is installed. I think if you just click next, there will be no reserve partition. I currently have C and the reserve partition.

Peter, post a screen capture of a full screen Disk Management window. Make sure you expand Status field so it can be fully read.

When I install Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10, I delete all partition so the drive is empty then click next and let the OS installer setup whatever partitions it wants.

think of it like this, your hard drive is one big filing cabinet, each draw in that cabinet is a partition.

now when you buy a pc it will usually come with 4 draws/partitions,

top small draw is the uefi (1st partition and is about 250 MB if memory serves and is the partition that is booted first, and holds the bootloader.)

next draw is windows system reserved (2nd partition and is about 100MB, no idea what this is used for thought it was supposed to be for page file but not sure now.)

next draw and largest is the os and all data. (3rd partition and takes up nearly all the drive lets say about 925GB on a 1TB drive, it is this partition that you can shrink if you want to create another draw or partition for just your data.)

next draw is the recovery partition. (4th partition and about 25GB, this holds all the info and programs needed to install your windows os, just like a retail install disk.)

now when you do a factory restore it will boot the 4th partition to get all the data needed to create the first 3 partitions and then install the os onto the 3rd partition.

if you do an install using a retail install disc and not the built in tools then you can safely delete all the first 3 partitions and then just let it do it's thing and keep clicking next and it will create those first 3 partitions and install itself without you needing to change or select anything else.

if you delete that 4th partition during the install using a retail disk then you will also lose for good the options to do a factory restore, (unless you made a full hard drive image before starting, this is not the same as doing an os partition image which will probably include the needed uefi and system reserve partitions anyway.)  and when finished you will only have the first 3 partitions on that hard drive or a filing cabinet with only 3 draws now instead of 4. uefi, system reserve, and os

if you want to during the install using a retail disc you can delete the first 3 partitions and then create say 2 equal size partitions using that now free space 1st for the os 2nd for your data, now when you select the first of those 2 partitions to install the os to it will either automatically create another 2 partitions in that space for the uefi and system reserve and use the left over space to install the os by default or tell you it needs to create the uefi and system reserve partitions and wait for you to click ok.

so in the end you will have 5 draws/ partitions in the cabinet/ on the drive.

uefi, system reserved, os, data, factory restore.

you can have as many draws or partitions on the drive as you want (or nearly.) but the uefi and system reserve partitions will always be created when installing windows because they are needed before windows will work, along with a main draw/partition for the os location.

hope that explains how things work in a way that is easy to understand.

should add that's with gpt filesystem and uefi, if you use the old mbr filesystem then the uefi partition doesn't get created and the partition where the os is installed becomes the first boot partition and where the bootloader will be located instead of the uefi partition but the system reserved partition will always be created with any windows os from win 7 on up during install.

I have the older BIOS not UEFI and have dell xps 8300.

I have attached a file showing the discs on my machine.

I read and did the following to create the reserve partition with C = when I have gotten to deleting all but 0 unallocated 900GB I click;  custom, drive opts, new then apply or a sequence similar to that.

If I just click 'next' C only  is created.

I guess I did open a can of worms b/c there is no reason for the reserve partition unless I am going to encrypt the OS, I think which I am not going to do. I just wanted the reserve partition but different pcs seem to have different way to do it. I could simply click next but then I would have only C.

Terry, I made a note of your email and will study it. I don't see in it where it directly states how to maintain the reserve partition and I know you have me detailed information for me to deduce that. I find it hard to do but am trying.

Rich, I have the prntscrn of the disc image as an attachment.

I am preparing for Win 10 in case there is no provision to clean install I won't have to drag a lot of clutter along with me. I just have to update my clean image .

As usual, I thank you both.

 

I guess I did open a can of worms b/c there is no reason for the reserve partition unless I am going to encrypt the OS, I think which I am not going to do. I just wanted the reserve partition but different pcs seem to have different way to do it. I could simply click next but then I would have only C.

not sure where you got the info that the reserve partition is there only if your going to encrypt the drive, don't know if that is true or not because i'm not sure exactly what windows uses it for but as far as i'm aware there is no way to do an install of windows 7 using it's partitioner during install where it will not automatically create that partition anyway no matter what partition setup you may manually set, like Ztruker said if you just delete all the partitions on the drive and then do the install of the os to, it will always create the reserve partition during the install.

more info here :-

 

When you use the graphical partition manager in the Windows installer to create your Windows partition in unallocated space on a drive, you’ll receive a message saying, “To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files.” Windows will usually create a System Reserved partition in the unallocated space before the main system partition.

 

If you don’t want this partition on your drive, the ideal thing to do is prevent it from being created in the first place. Rather than create a new partition in unallocated space from within the Windows installer, you can create a new partition consuming all the unallocated space with another disk-partitioning tool.

http://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/

 

Terry, I made a note of your email and will study it. I don't see in it where it directly states how to maintain the reserve partition and I know you have me detailed information for me to deduce that. I find it hard to do but am trying.

the important part of my last post:-

 

the system reserved partition will always be created with any windows os from win 7 on up during install.

You have to delete all existing partitions for this to work. It has to be a raw, unallocated HDD. Then clicking next will create the necessary partitions.

On a side note, I could swear that clicking next created only the C drive with no reserve and clicking new + apply created the reserve partition.

However, I have been studying the tutorials and everything you say is accurate. My memory did not serve me accurately.

With the advent of Win 10 I wanted my facts straight in case I needed to use this procedure.

Thank you for making the point. I am glad it is that easy and not more complex.